An average of 12,414 medical malpractice cases is reported to the NPDB annually (between 2009-2018) in the USA. Even bigger number of people suffer from medical negligence, wrong diagnosis, and preventable accidents. However, only 2% of that bigger gets reported. (Source: https://www.rosenbaumfirm.com/medical-malpractice-statistics.html) Even in the medical malpractice cases that get reported, patients often find it hard to prove their case with the lawyers sifting through tons of medical documents. However, there is one medical document that they should not miss reading- Patient medical charts.
Patient Medical Charts
Patient medical charts are the documents generated by the healthcare team consisting of nurses, doctors, and other technicians throughout treatment. These documents generally carry a comprehensive amount of detail regarding the events that took place when the patient was admitted.
Every treatment course, every observation made by the physician team, and every medicine prescribed and applied is mentioned in the patient medical charts. Anyone looking to review or understand the treatment provided to a patient can use these as the basis documents.
As per HIPAA, patients and their immediate kin are allowed access to the medical documents, and some hospitals also set up patient portals for them to access these document sets.
Patient Medical Charts vs EHR
With the adoption of electronic health record systems, some might argue that the value of patient medical charts in malpractice suits has gone down. On the contrary, some hospitals do maintain paper-charting systems or digital EMR systems where medical charting takes place. The EHR is a larger set of information with a lot of other details in addition to the medical data.
Medical Summaries and Patient Medical Charts
EMR or Patient Medical Charts give a clearer run down of the events and treatment techniques employed to understand the process as a whole. Attorneys who are acting on the patients’ behalf may not be able to identify the issue just looking at the scans, lab reports, and physician summaries alone. They usually employ medical summary firms like Medsum to analyze, review and summarize the medical documents for them to peruse.
Medical summary firms go through all the data and events charted in the patients’ medical charts, including but not limited to surgical notes, physician observation, lab reports analysis, and nurse notes to give a clearer picture to the legal team. Usually, it is in the medical charts that you can find the real reason for a medical incident. Sometimes, it is the smallest details like initial data provided, allergies noted, or pre-existing medical conditions noted in the medical chart that can turn the case in your favor.
As medical summary firms read both the medical charts and the EHR provided from the hospitals, they can arrive at a clearer understanding of the incident and also provide expert advice to the legal team.
Medical Malpractice Suits
It can seem daunting to prove your case against the hospitals or doctors when it comes to a medical malpractice suit. Patient medical charts are often the densest documents out of all existing medical documents. The amount of medical information in them is immense. Legal teams often get bogged down understanding medical terms than arguing the case for their clients. Medical summary firms like ours are here to go through the jargon and bring out actual unbiased chronological summaries so that the patient and their legal team can understand the information better.
If you are looking for a concise, unbiased, and intelligent summary of your medical records, give us a call today. We are here to help you!
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